According to unreliable sources at an obscure social networking site, the spikes in suicide rates can be directly traced to Obummer.

Well, they knew the Death Panels are coming anyway, so they just took care of it themselves rather than let guvmint take away their rights. And what with Obummer threatening to break down their door and take their guns away, they had to act quickly.

I can't argue with the Obummer theory, but I have another. The medical community treats every ailment with medication...and us middleaged white Christian males tend to self-medicate with our drug of choice (alcohol/pot/etc), frequently held over from our youth. Combine this with the hopelessness I've seen over and over again because of competition, reverse discrimination and the debilitating effects of the health afflictions in our age group (diabetes, ED, heart, etc) and the statistic doesn't surprise me at all. And yes, I said "our" age group. I do everything I can to avoid falling into the trap created by these conditions, but unlike our government in Viet Nam and Afghanistan, I have an "exit strategy". Who knows, maybe one day I'll become a statistic as well. But until then, I'll fight. And today I'm wining the battle. Despite Obummer.

I also think that people in our age group in the last 13 years are extremely frustrated, having been hit with a quadruple whammy! The tech collapse, with millions losing 50%+ of their 401Ks and/or long term investment accounts, touted as being the "best way" to increase their net worth!

Then our economy is damn close to being scuttled by almost $1.5 trillion and counting (link) compliments of the two Bush administrations and Obama in an ongoing war in Afghanistan!

Then came the housing collapse, where millions ended up with inverted mortgages and 100s of 1000s losing their their jobs, millions their homes, the busting up of families as well! Years have gone by since that began, with no real growth in that area in sight yet, that just happens to trickle down to 1000s of support businesses!

And IMO, people are going to get slapped again, when the rest of the Obamacare fully kicks in in 2014! No one knows what to expect and so are becoming more frustrated of the unknown, both citizens and businesses!

Just a synopsis of the confusion, infusion that has/is causing extreme frustration by stress, in our country!!

Ohhh... and let's not forget our national debt, now approaching $19 trillion bucks (link) created over several administrations so that both Democrats AND Republicans are to blame! No scapegoating in the political department against the citizens here, by any stretch of one's imagination!!

There are a lot of people feeling hopeless in my generation. They work for a pension, sustain a RIF or company going belly up and wind up with nothing for their future. Divorce is common so instead of a team working together it is the Lone Ranger and not necessarily sustainable for building a solid financial retirement base. Homes have been lost one way or another. They are put out to pasture by their career field and the job market doesn't want them

As one of my clients in the situation described above told me when I was a veterans job counselor, "Maybe I should get into a black plastic bag and hop out to the curb with the rest of the trash." It can be quite depressing and overwhelming

What people don't realize is that all of these expedient, short term, short sighted policies of corporations are going to bite the nation in the butt.

When the chickens come home to roost, America will be in the coop. Boomers living past their work life will be a major factor for the next 30 years to varying extents. We are living longer, there are increasingly more of us, and we have fewer resources (for whatever reason) to get by one our own

I am sure all of the above are a part of the problem but anyone who could not see it coming for the last 30 or more years had to be pretty blind, Heck I could see it coming in the 70s,

The main problem is people's lack of coping skills that our ancestors had, Perhaps a lot of people grew up a little too privileged and had it a little too easy in life, They never got the chance to develop the skills to survive in a tough world, They went to college and got a degree in many cases without thinking about what they were going to do if they were booted out of their career fields, Some fields became over saturated and all those pretty little diplomas did not mean a high paying job, No plan b equals stress and no coping skills mean people feel hopeless and that leads them to do stupid things, Our grandparents or great grandparents went through the great depression without offing themselves unless they were the elite who could not cope with being poor, We have become a nation that is weak in times of crisis and that has nothing to do with who sits in office, that has to do with the person everyone sees in the mirror every morning,